What Are The Gobshites Saying These Days?

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Welcome back to our weekly survey of the state of Our National Dialogue which, of course, is what Donizetti would have come up with had he composed Lucia di Laminated.

We must forgive the gobshites if they appeared a little slow a'foot this week, since the annual Washington gobshite ceili was held on Saturday night, and the combination of being hungover, and the sudden loss of altitude from being The Height Of Cool to being the same boring sods they were Friday night, and became again early Sunday morning, would bamfoozle the finest minds, of whom we are not exactly speaking here. It's like being Cinderella, except Joe Scarborough's booker shows up the next day, and not Prince Charming.

Perhaps the fact that some of the folks were late rolling out of the sack accounts for the presence of one Rep. Dutch Ruppensberger on This Week With The Clinton Guy Shocked By Blowjobs. We here at the blog would like to welcome Dutch Ruppensberger to our roster of gobshites, if only because it's fun to type "Dutch Ruppensberger," and because there are far too few members of our Congress who sound like cigar companies from the 1950's. (I believe "Smoke Dutch Ruppensbergers" was a billboard on the outfield wall at ol' Ebbets Field, but I might be mistaken.) But, before we get to Dutch, The Clinton Guy Shocked Etc. filled us in on what a giddy time was had by all the previous evening.

STEPHANOPOULOS: We've got all the stars, jokes, and glamour from the White House Correspondents Dinner.

We have them stored here in this mayonnaise jar. Remember Thou Keepest The Sabbath Holy And Not Drinketh With Both Thine Hands Before Noon. Jesus God, shoot me now.

Soon, though, we had left the giddy world of Washington celebrity behind, and it was all business again, as the topic turned to Syria, and all agreed that Something Should Be Done, especially Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee which, despite its name, is not ther room in the Capitol where they have Louie Gohmert's picture on the wall under a placard reading, "NO!"

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me bring in the Chairman. The Chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Mike Rogers. You've also, of course, looked at -- at a lot of this evidence. Is it conclusive enough for you?

ROGERS: It is. And there is also classified information that we have, that I think strengthens the case that in fact some small amount of chemical weapons have been used over the course of the last two years.

Wait. Whoa. There is evidence that you have that we can't see that proves your case? This rodeo looks a bit familiar. I recognize some of the bulls, and the clowns look famiiar. Have we been here before?

And -- and the problem is, you know the president has laid down the line. He -- and it can't be a dotted line. It can't be anything other than a red line. And more than just Syria, Iran is paying attention to this. North Korea is paying attention to this.

Why, yes. I believe I have tasted these corn dogs before. Talk soon shifted to the importance of red lines. These are important because the president talked about them and, therefore, they exist, especially in the minds of the mullahs and other people who control our foreign policy.

GOLDBERG: ...He's been fuzzy on Iran, except to say that they shouldn't cross the nuclear threshold. But the Iranians are watching this one very carefully. They believe that he has a red line for their nuclear program, and they're watching how he handles the Syria issue. And every day that goes by where it seems as if there's indecision, or it seems as though there's some level of ambivalence, is -- is -- is the wrong signal to the Iranians, to the North Koreans, to anyone who wants to test the United States.

Come to think of it, whatever happened to the North Koreans? The last I heard, they were holding up Guam, demanding its wallet and keys. Was it all just a charming flirtation from a crazy person? And, if so, why would they care what the president does in Syria. They didn't particularly seem to care what he did in Japan. This was where our new friend, the cigar company, stepped in, pointing out that while Something Must Be Done, almost everything that Must Be Done is very hard and could be stupidly dangerous.

RUPPENSBERGER:...You know we can't make decisions because we're concerned about how -- how Iran, or North Korea looks at us -- at us. That is an issue, no question. But we're going to do what we need to do. We have unique weapons that no one else has. But you talk about a no-fly zone. It's easy to say it, but Syria is very sophisticated. Libya was not sophisticated. So, we have a lot of issues on the table, and we've got to get it right. But, I believe very strongly, we have to do it as a -- as a team.

Unfortunately, he was overcome at that moment by a severe spasm of invisibility, as The Clinton Guy Shocked Etc. wanted to move the program along.

STEPHANOPOULOS: What's the most effective escalation right now?

The powerhouse panel came on a little later. It included, for reasons known only to god, N. Leroy Gingrich, Definer Of Civilization's Rules and Leader (Perhaps) Of The Civilizing Forces. But the real highlight was when George Effing Will had the basic history of American politics fall off the top shelf and hit him in the head.

And George you asked the question, isn't it the case that in a showdown like this, the articulate, the well-organized, the affluent, the complaining middle-class benefits of course. Big government is always the servant of the strong enough to organize and make its levers work.

Yes, George. Especially if we study the years 1880 to 1929, American history teaches us that small, deregulated government is the comfort of the afflicted and the friend of the working man. And, if we study the years 1929 to, oh, 1980, American history teaches us that "big government" -- the New Deal, the GI Bill, student loans, etc. -- works only for the strong and the powerful. And, if we study the years from 1980 to the present, and the rise of the "small government" principles championed by, among other noxious Beltway suckfish, George Effing Will, American history teaches us that incomes will rise for us all, and that the power of money will fade from our land, and that only a few of us will die in the explosion of unregulated fertilizer plants. Also, too: you've got to be a special kind of oblivious to think that the "middle class" wields any real power in this country. Or a hopeless fop. Opinions vary.

Over on CBS, former Valois environmental correspondent Bob Schieffer hosted a panel that obviously had had a few bad ice cubes the night before. It featured not only longtime Presidential Staff Mummy David Gergen, a man who makes Schieffer look like Justin Timberlake, but also Our Lady Of The Magic Dolphins, who appeared to be wearing a pearl-encrusted fire hose around her neck. She brought the kindergarten, though, no question.

NOONAN: What's fascinating to me is that everybody agrees that Syria is a...very...dangerous...place right now. Everybody sort of doesn't know what to do about it.

None of that for the reclusive John McCain, though. He came out on Disco Dave's Disco Dance Party at full throttle.

We have to as an international group, plan and be ready operationally -- not just plan, but be ready operationally -- to go in and secure those areas...But the worst thing the United States could do right now is put boots on the ground in Syria because it would turn the people against us...And just let me say, the Syrian people are angry and bitter at the United States. I was in a refugee camp in Jordan, and there are thousands of people and kids. And this woman who's a school teacher said, 'Sen. McCain, you see these people here? They're going to take revenge on those people who refuse to help them.' They're angry and bitter. And that legacy could last for a long time too unless we assist them."

Mucking around in the Middle East for a decade, at the encouragement of people like John McCain, seems to have had some consequences that were, ah, unforeseen. Namely, that nobody trusts us over there any more for about 1000 different self-contradictory reasons. Somebody should have planned for that between Jell-o shots with Mila Kunis, I'm thinking.